What makes a good idea?

Julie Dodd, Creative Director at December 2014

YOU!

WHY DO YOUR IDEAS MATTER?

Digital teams are in charge of the future of organisations

THE RISE OF GLOBAL COMPUTING POWER

The growth in CPU power over the

next 15 years will make the last 15 look like we’ve

been asleep

50%

50%

GETTING THE IDEA RIGHT

GETTING THE IDEA OUT

THERE

THIS PRESENTATION

SOME GOOD IDEAS

Online Field TripsFarm to Fork

Join us live on

SOME GOOD IDEAS

Charity: water’s birthday donation campaign

SOME GOOD IDEAS

Getty’s Lean In Collection – beautiful free images of empowered women to help break stereotypes

SOME GOOD IDEAS

FutureLearn: Education as it should be

#Icebucketchallenge – social campaigns are hit and miss, but when they work…

SOME GOOD IDEAS

LIGHTBULB MOMENTS How can you create them?

4 THINGS THAT CAN HELP MAKE A GREAT IDEA

BAD IDEAS

SLEEPING ON IT

CRITERIA

INVOLVING YOUR AUDIENCE

SET SOME CRITERIA

Without setting yourself a framework for judging ideas it’s just one person’s opinion over another, and you’ll make slow progress

True to your brand

IS IT AUTHENTIC?

Time, money, staff, kit…

IS IT AUDIENCE -LED?

IS IT ACHIEVABLE?

HOW TO SET CRITERIA:

YOUR BRAND

AUTHENTICALLY YOU

A TRUTH ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE

The good stuff happens here

BRAND AUDIENCE

People hate missing

Eastenders

BRAND AUDIENCE

People don’t get round to

giving donations they

intend to

BRAND AUDIENCE

People like how slick

Apple products are

FAIL

Barclay’s have no authenticity in fashion, so this might not work

Colgate really didn’t understand their audience when they tried to introduce Colgate entrees!

If you don’t know what your

audience wants

- spend some time with them

True to your brand

IS IT AUTHENTIC?

Time, money, staff, kit…

IS IT AUDIENCE -LED?

IS IT ACHIEVABLE?

HOW TO SET CRITERIA:

BADS IDEAS ARE IMPORTANT

If you don’t let the bad ideas out, you may never get to

the good ones

The post-it note was invented by

accident during an R&D process to try and make a really

sticky glue!

SLEEP ON IT

INVOLVE YOUR AUDIENCE

INVOLVE YOUR AUDIENCE

IDEO take early ideas and publish

them online to gather feedback before going into full development

They’ll make your idea better

Diabetes Uk involved their Facebook

audience in making their tracker app and got > 20k downloads

in the first few months

MAKING IT HAPPEN What gets an idea noticed?

If an idea happens in a forest but there’s no-one there to see it…

4 THINGS THAT CAN HELP GET A GREAT IDEA OUT THERE

EMOTIONAL BEFORE RATIONAL

MAKING IT FEEL REAL

SIMPLICITY

START THE PITCH BEFORE THE PITCH

SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE

Can you explain it in less than 30 seconds?

SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE

Or in 4 words

SIMPLE, SIMPLE, SIMPLE

EMOTIONAL BEFORE RATIONAL

People don’t always remember what you say or even what you do, but they always remember how you made them feel.

“

”

Maya Angelou

MAKE IT FEEL REAL

Verbally explaining

ideas hardly ever makes

them fly

MAKE IT FEEL REAL

If you don’t know this reference watch the Hudsucker Proxy

MAKE IT FEEL REAL

This is an iPad prototype from

2001

MAKE IT FEEL REAL

And one from 1983!

Amazing things like Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, Little bits kits – give you the power to make tech ideas real at low cost in short timeframes

MAKE IT FEEL REAL

Prototypes don’t have to be ‘real’ they just need to feel real

START THE PITCH BEFORE THE PITCH

Going in cold rarely gets you an immediate “yes”.

50%

50%

GETTING THE IDEA RIGHT

GETTING THE IDEA OUT

THERE

REMEMBER

Conclusion slide

JulieDodd

julie@digitalforgood.co.uk @